


TiO (Our Inner Secrets)

by myownspark



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - America, Alternate Universe - Ballet, Alternate Universe - Dance, M/M, New York City
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-02
Updated: 2018-11-02
Packaged: 2019-08-14 11:40:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16491881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myownspark/pseuds/myownspark
Summary: Liam was exuberant in a way that set him apart from the line of ballerinas behind him; his jumps made their precise pirouettes look like child’s play. There was a joy there that collided with his strength, and he became a sight that no one in the theater could look away from.The crowd roared when Liam took his bow, and Zayn found himself clapping too, and following Liam with his eyes through the bustle of gingerbread dancers and marzipan flutes. Liam made his way toward backstage right, breathless and glowing as if he’d just come in from a real snowstorm. When he got close Zayn could see his eyes, dark and mysterious underneath the coal black liner, but sparkling with excitement and pride. Zayn wanted to be the one to help him change out of his costume, but more, wanted to whisper to him as he did it, a soft, awestruck “let me help you with that,” as he peeled it back from Liam’s shoulders. He’d trace the trail of sweat at Liam’s hairline with his fingertip, down over his glittered cheek; he’d glimpse the skin of his collarbone and—But it wasn’t to be, not tonight, and not for many nights after.Or, a short story about a long relationship between a costumer and a ballet dancer.





	TiO (Our Inner Secrets)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to my friends and betas, who I'll identify after the reveal. I can't tell you how much I appreciate you; It feels good knowing that you'll make sure my work is the best it can be.

 

 _The Nutcracker,_ 1995

Texas. It had to be Texas, or Ohio maybe. It was one of those big football states, Zayn was sure of it. Even from across the hall, the new broad-shouldered dancer looked more like football than ballet.

He also looked lost.

Zayn had been lost too, on his first day at the New York City Ballet’s costume shop a year and a half ago. He may not have known much about dance back then, but he knew his way around a sewing machine, a cloth tape, and a seam ripper. He was fresh out of design school, ready to dive headfirst into the magical factory where the best ballet dancers in the world were made into noble princes, shimmering fairies, and heartbroken swans. A lowly assistant at first, his days were filled with the grunt work of cutting, mending, hemming, ripping, gluing, ironing and steaming, all between coffee and sandwich runs for the senior costumers and assisting with research in the library. He’d been promoted to assistant draper just in time for Nutcracker season to begin again.

Time for the Christmas party guests with their ornate dresses and coats, the snowflake and flower ballerinas with their lighter-than-air pink and white tulle skirts, the mice with their fat gray suits, and of course the rows of soldiers with their tailcoats and pain-in-the-ass feathered hats. And snow. So much paper confetti snow that created the enchanted holiday nightscape for the waltz of the snowflakes, that then had to be painstakingly picked out of tutus and tiaras after every performance.

Zayn wondered which of the many characters this new dancer would be. No one should hide that face under a mouse mask was his primary thought, studying the young man who stood next to the wall with a manila folder in his hand. The newbie was looking around the crowded room tentatively, as if he’d just gotten off a train in a strange country where he didn’t speak the language.

Dot looked out over the reading glasses that were perched on the edge of her nose. “Go rescue him, please, the poor thing,” she said to Zayn, returning her attention to the row of plastic covered costumes on the rack.

Zayn left Dot’s office, wound through the sewing desks past the cutting table, and caught the dancer’s eye with a wave.

“Are you here for a fitting?” Zayn asked. He reached out for the dancer’s folder and read the label. _Liam Payne_. _Apprentice._

“Yeah, I … didn’t know where …”

“Follow me. I’m Zayn.”

 

The first part of the fitting was clinical, like a doctor’s visit; Liam had undressed to almost naked, after all, save for his dancing belt and suede-soled ballet shoes. The bits of small talk Dot and Zayn offered as Liam slipped into the candy cane dancer costume were quiet and polite, and they quickly got down to business, moving around Liam silently, measuring and pinching and tucking. Liam didn’t know where to put his eyes, so he fixed them on a handwritten sign on the wall across the room above the industrial sewing machine. _No sequins near this machine ever!_ Someone had come at it with a pink marker and scrawled underneath, _Ok, we promise._ Liam thought it somehow fit perfectly with this odd couple, one old and one young, who wore measuring tapes around their necks and kept tucking chalk pencils behind their ears. They moved in tandem, having whole conversations with no words, just hums and sighs with pins held between their lips.

Liam obeyed the older woman’s mimed orders, turning and bending and moving his arms through the ballet positions, making the tiny jingle bells that trimmed his costume ring. Liam thought she was probably the same age as his mom, and that the two of them might have been friends, if his mom had grown up in the city instead of on the farm.

Once each section of the striped shirt was pinned, the energy shifted, as if they suddenly realized there was an actual living, breathing person inside the costume. Dot tilted her head, her face softening as she looked him in the eyes for the first time. “Now, uh …”

“Liam,” Zayn offered.

“Liam. Do you feel like this could come in?” She tugged on the section of stretch satin that draped under his arm. “I think so, right?”

“It’s comfortable,” Liam said, after considering it. He felt like a child or a clown in the shiny red and white diagonal stripe. But he could breathe, and he liked the way the fabric slid over his skin when he moved.

“Well then.” Dot’s smile was almost apologetic. “It definitely could come in.”

Zayn stepped closer and adjusted Liam’s arm, then held the fabric taut and pinned it. Liam tried to concentrate on the sign again, but the words blurred behind the spikes of Zayn’s pink-tipped hair, so close to Liam’s cheek. Liam was sure Zayn could smell his sweat, and probably his breath too, the way he could smell Zayn, a light mix of coffee and warm, clean cotton, and the kind of cologne that comes from glossy magazines.

“Chin up, alright?” Zayn reminded him softly, which made Liam straighten his neck and pull his shoulders back as well. For a second Liam thought of his father, and saw the look of disappointment that at times bordered on disgust when he stood tall and proud like that, in the costumes that were always too shiny and too tight for his father’s tastes. Then he remembered he didn’t have to think about what his father did or thought anymore, because he was back in Omaha.

“Nice.” Dot nodded when Zayn stepped away again. She put a hand on her hip. “Now, feet in first position.”

They squinted down at the hem that grazed the floor as Liam pressed his heels together, toes pointing away from each other. Without a word Zayn knelt beside him and took up the extra fabric, pulling pins from a cushion on his wrist. Liam fought the urge to look down at him, to watch his hands move, watch the fabric turn between his fingers. _No. Sequins. Near. This—_

“There. We’ll make a candy cane out of you yet,” Dot said, picking up Liam’s folder and making a few notes. She reminded Liam of his mom again, practical and efficient, and her kindness felt like an opening door.

“I was supposed to be a mouse. But Daniel hurt his knee, so … here I am.”

Dot and Zayn exchanged a look. “That was a rough day. Ambulances are never good.” She pulled off her glasses and propped them in her hair, then gave Liam a small smile. “The hoop dance is serious business. The principals must think highly of you.”

“Eh, maybe?” Liam felt a little off balance, remembering the whirlwind of being called up to audition in front of the ballet master and principal dancers. But perhaps it’s also because Zayn’s warm finger grazed against his ankle as he pinned the hem. Liam shook his head. “I’ll get booted back to understudy right after New Years’.”

“Nah, you’ve got to show them what you’ve got.” Zayn’s voice wafted up, and this time Liam did look down. Zayn was still concentrating on the hem, but spoke plainly, as if to himself. “Be the best damn candy cane dancer they’ve ever seen. They’ll have to put you in the corps. That’s how it works around here. Competition. Best man wins.”

“Or woman,” Dot said with a raised eyebrow. “Second position.”

Liam took a step so his heels were a foot apart. Zayn knelt back, inspecting how the fabric draped down Liam’s legs. Liam wished Zayn would say more; he liked his soft, measured voice that spoke as if every word was important.

Dot spoke instead. “And third. Arms too.” Liam slid his right foot so it rested in front of his left, and raised his arms, one to shoulder height and one above his head. He breathed deeply, letting them look.

“Peter Frame was an apprentice once too, you know,” Dot continued, as she smoothed her hand down the front of Liam’s shirt where it gathered a bit, and gave it another little pinch. “And Peter Boal was a mouse in his first Nutcracker.”

“And look at him now,” Zayn said, getting to his feet. “He’s The Prince.”

The Prince in Balanchine’s Nutcracker. It made Liam’s knees restless, the idea of it. He shifted on his feet, and chuckled. It was silly to even think of it, really. He could count six or seven better dancers right off the top of his head. Well, five. Four, actually. He met Zayn’s eyes then, which hadn’t moved from him, and he realized, inside that direct look, that Zayn wasn’t joking.

“You’ll be a principal, and I’ll be head costumer. How’s that?” Zayn said, and Liam thought that nothing had ever sounded so insane. But he took a breath, and realized it was actually wonderful. He forgot for a moment about candy canes and jingle bells, long enough for his head to spin with the roles he could play. If it was true, that he could really do it, then they would stitch him inside costumes and he’d become someone else, someone he could never be at home in Nebraska. He could be a pirate, a warrior, a prince, a swan. He could be Spartacus. He could be Don Quixote. He could be Romeo.

He saw it all, in the smiling eyes of the pink-haired assistant draper, that day in the costume department.

 

The assistant draper didn’t see it until six weeks later, on opening night, from the dark of backstage right where he stood with other members of his team, helping dancers get in and out of their costumes.

He saw it just as easily as the audience in the last row mezzanine did when the candy cane dance began, Liam leaping and twisting through his red and white hoop, seeming to fly instead of dance. He was exuberant in a way that set him apart from the line of ballerinas behind him; his jumps made their precise pirouettes look like child’s play. There was a joy there that collided with his strength, and he became a sight that no one in the theater could look away from.

The crowd roared when Liam took his bow, and Zayn found himself clapping too, and following Liam with his eyes through the bustle of gingerbread dancers and marzipan flutes. Liam made his way toward backstage right, breathless and glowing as if he’d just come in from a real snowstorm. When he got close Zayn could see his eyes, dark and mysterious underneath the coal black liner, but sparkling with excitement and pride. Zayn wanted to be the one to help him change out of his costume, but more, wanted to whisper to him as he did it, a soft, awestruck “let me help you with that,” as he peeled it back from Liam’s shoulders. He’d trace the trail of sweat at Liam’s hairline with his fingertip, down over his glittered cheek; he’d glimpse the skin of his collarbone and—

But it wasn’t to be, not tonight, and not for many nights after. Liam gave him a smile and a nod, jingle bells tinkling as he went by in a sparkling rush, and Zayn found his own pounding heart hot in his chest as he unzipped the waiting ballerina in front of him.

 

 

 _Sleeping Beauty,_ 2001

The hallways were full after the performance, with sweaty, smiling dancers and wide-eyed guests. Stopping for cheek kisses every few feet made the walk from the stage to the dressing room take triple the time it should, like traffic jammed up on a crowded freeway, and Zayn was trying his best to be patient.

Liam’s debut as a soloist had gone splendidly. His arms were filled with flowers that he’d gathered up at his final bow; they’d be added to the bouquets already in his dressing room, from well-wishers, patrons, and from Zayn himself, of course, who chose lilacs over roses. (Later, when the champagne had been popped and costume shed, Liam would tell Zayn that the lilacs were his favorite, and that they were the only ones he wanted to take home. This made Zayn especially proud, and less guilty about putting them in front of the white rose bouquet from the handsome journalist from _The Times._ )

Zayn was the one to unlock Liam’s dressing room door, and he held it open as if for an honored guest. When it closed behind them they were, for the first time all night, blissfully alone.

“Do you hear that?” Liam asked. He looked at the counter for a moment, before placing his bouquets on the floor.

“Hear what?”

“That ringing. Or is it just me?” Liam pushed a finger to his ear and tried to unbutton his satin wedding jacket with his other hand.

The sound Zayn heard was more like a buzz, the leftover vibration from the orchestra and the audience’s applause. It felt good, like proof that something great had happened, that it wasn’t all a dream.

“Here, let me get that,” he said, closing the space between them. The jacket was held closed by knotted buttons of gold brocade, and Zayn found that his fingers trembled just a bit when he reached for the first one. He watched as the bulb of the top button passed through the thick gold cording, and then the second slipped free and made space for Zayn’s hand to dip inside, skimming over the thin fabric of Liam’s undershirt. The sound of Liam’s sigh was the sound of release, of finally letting the performance part of the night go.

“What are you doing?” Liam asked.

“Helping you out of your costume,” Zayn answered back matter-of-factly, feeling heat in his cheeks. “That’s my job.”

“It hasn’t been your job for years,” Liam purred.

Zayn shrugged. “Old habits.” He was mesmerized by Liam’s posture, his thighs in his white tights that showed each curve of muscle, his neck that shone with makeup and sweat. He followed the line of Liam’s jaw up, lingering on his lips that were colored a rosy brown.

“I liked watching you dance tonight,” Zayn whispered. A kiss was planted, soft, and Zayn liked the strange, complicated taste of Liam’s lipstick.

“Which part?”

Zayn’s eyes fell on Liam’s cheekbones, defined with contour powder, highlighter, and blush, then looked up to his eyes. They always drove Zayn insane with desire when they were made up this way, shining out from under a smoky black shadow and dark mascara that made him look coy and feminine but somehow utterly masculine at the same time. Later, after, he would help Liam take it off with cold cream and tissues. Liam’s face would appear from behind the mask and look at him, naked and familiar. But not yet.

“Zayn, which part?” Liam asked again.

“The wedding.”

“That was Katie’s dance.” Liam chuckled a little, because Zayn’s hands were reaching down to the lower buttons, tickling Liam’s stomach.

“Right, but,” Zayn thought a moment, and the reason was actually very simple. “You held her up. You carried her. You balanced her. You didn’t let her fall. You were her partner.”

Liam’s smiling face clouded over, making his dark eyes shadowy and small. “I don’t want to just be someone’s partner. I want to be …”

“What?”

Another kiss, this time with his tongue that licked at the corner of Liam’s mouth. The buzz in his ears had turned into music that ran over and over in his head, violins and clarinets and timpani drums.

“I want to be a hero.”

Zayn tugged the wedding jacket from Liam’s arms and let it fall to the floor. “You could be my hero.”

 

 

 _Metamorphosis,_ 2007

Their cab ride home after the performance had been all but silent.

It was always the same on show nights: stretches in the dressing room along with menthol rub, Tylenol and ice packs at home. But Liam was moving more slowly than usual, and Zayn recognized the tense lines between Liam’s eyebrows when he opened the fridge to grab a beer. They were pain lines, too deep to hide.

With only three performances left, Liam could probably push through on adrenaline and cortisone shots, but this seemed different than a muscle bruise or a tight shoulder. The question had gone unasked for too long. Zayn leaned against the kitchen counter and took a deep breath to bolster him.

“So, you’re hurting?”

“Of course I am. That third act is a bitch, I told you,” Liam almost spat between long draws of the bottle.

Zayn had seen it for himself, in rehearsals and on stage. It was a dance unlike any Liam had tackled before, filled with unnatural, inhuman shapes; it was incredible that Liam could create the stiff movements of the insect and the eerie slithering across the floor. Then there was the bitch of the story itself, a journey of mutation, pain, loneliness and death, repeated night after night.

Zayn walked to the cabinet near the sink where they kept Liam’s meds. He reached for the Ibuprofen to start.

“No, I mean, your back.”

Liam took the pills and swallowed them with what remained in the bottle.

When it was clear he wouldn’t get an answer, Zayn pushed on. “Do you think it’s a pulled muscle? I saw you favoring it.”

“When?” Liam scoffed.

“The dream sequence.” Zayn ignored the fact that Liam was turning away and kept talking. “Your arms, your neck. You were being cautious.” Zayn considered the consequences of what this all meant, and pushed on. “You’re injured.”

Liam spun, and they finally made eye contact. “You saw that.” He said it sarcastically, as if to say that Zayn couldn’t possibly notice, as if he didn’t know anything about how that choreography should look, as if the idea was preposterous that Zayn could know anything about how Liam’s body could work. Or couldn’t.

“Yes. I did. So what? We’ll get it looked—”

“You didn’t, because I’m not.” Liam gave him an accusing look. “Stick to what you know.” He stalked out toward the bathroom, leaving Zayn alone with the empty bottle.

“I know you,” Zayn said to no one.

But he couldn’t begrudge Liam keeping secrets. He had a few of his own.

There was his resume of costume designs inside the black zippered portfolio hidden between the desk and the wall in the next room. It was the result of months of study and revision, containing fabric samples and photographs of completed prototypes. His own version of the enchanted doll Coppelia lived there, sky blue with embroidered flowers trimming the bodice, along with his Nikiya with her russet veils and gold bracelets. His Romeo was there, and his Black Swan, his Cinderella and his Sylphide. Liam had appreciated the first few of them with a cool “wow, nice,” which felt like a pat on the head for a child who’s made a sweet costume for their paper dolls; Zayn stopped showing them to Liam after that, and certainly didn’t mention he’d begun to put his resume together.

And there were the phone calls too, that Zayn had made to Miami and San Francisco and Atlanta when he didn’t get the promotion. If those phone calls were secrets, he didn’t know how to define what the responses to those calls were, from department heads and human resources people. They were interested in him, and wanted to discuss his options. Did his secrets become something else when he doubled down on them? They did, and Zayn didn’t want to fully admit it, but it was clear in his more honest moments—they felt less like secrecy, and more like deception.

“I’m on your side, you know!” Zayn shouted angrily at the empty hallway. It pounded in Zayn’s ears like a shout. He slammed the cabinet door, wondering if Liam felt the same way.

 

Liam could push through pain of all kinds, but this kind woke him up at night. He knew that meant it had gotten bad. Bad enough that an ice bath couldn’t fix it, bad enough that the codeine Liam had snuck didn’t make a dent. And worse, bad enough that in the dark of night Liam’s worries could take over, the ones he didn’t ever allow to creep up in the daylight because what he had to do was too important for distractions. They were the worries that crashed through his fitful, aching half-sleep like a nocturnal bird of prey, waiting for the vulnerable moments when Liam was blind and exhausted. They were stark headlines that flashed black and white behind his eyes: “Back Injury Sidelines Principal Dancer,” “Company Unsure of Fall Season.” And of course, there was the one looming larger, bleaker than the others, with ominous music drumming behind it: “Payne Departs NYBC; Is Injury to Blame?”

Liam turned over gingerly with gritted teeth. It wasn’t yet getting light; he realized with a soft groan that it was nowhere near time to take another pill. The clock on his phone said as much; he placed it back on the nightstand, moving his arm just right to avoid the stab of pain that lurked between his shoulder and his spine.

“Babe?” Zayn’s voice was muffled, but startled Liam all the same.

“Hmm?”

Liam felt Zayn’s hand against his back.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, go back to sleep.”

“You groaned. Or something.”

“Go back to sleep.” It was almost a growl, and didn’t even sound like himself. Liam squeezed his eyes shut; if he could just get through the night, they’d wake up tomorrow and start over, and in the daylight this pain could be massaged, warmed and chilled, worked out in the physical therapist’s office, and they’d go on.

“Babe.”

The tender sound drifted over them, over their bed, over the sheets and covers that smelled like their togetherness. It was a gentle plea, and Liam got lost for a moment, with Zayn’s hand warm on his back, pulling him back out of his worries. He thought back to the mental list he kept of their tender moments, where, for all of its coolness, Zayn’s body couldn’t hide what it was feeling. There was the time after their apartment-warming party, when they were tired and drunk on happiness and cake, when they cuddled and spooned until Liam reached around to stroke him. Zayn’s thighs had trembled and quivered when he came, and all Liam could think as he kissed Zayn’s neck was “I did that.” And there was the time at the hotel in Boston, after they fought; Liam had caught a glimpse of Zayn’s toes curling when Liam rocked them in strong, quiet movements and Zayn had clung to him, gasping, as if Liam was the only thing holding them steady through a storm. I did that. I did that.

But Zayn knew his body too, Liam knew; he thought back to the stage, that twisted arabesque, and felt the spotlight on him again. Zayn could see it, but could everyone else? No, no they couldn’t. He dismissed the thought, because the audience never sees the pain, only the beauty in the story to be told.

‘How long will you be able to do what you love?’ Liam’s throat burned to ask him. ‘Forever’ would be Zayn’s answer. Zayn would be able to design and sew and until he was old, like Dot, a fixture in the costuming department, going deaf but still sharp and nimble-fingered. Zayn couldn’t understand what that meant, what it felt like to have an expiration date on your identity. The fear that who you are could be taken from you at any moment, from something beyond your control.

At the same time, it was Liam’s responsibility to protect Zayn from this. Protect them both.

“Go back to sleep,” Liam said again, more softly this time, but resisting the urge to turn over and grasp Zayn’s hand. He inched closer to him carefully instead, his back still turned. “It’s alright.”

 

 

 _Giselle/The Little Mermaid,_ 2015

Liam sat on the hard bench in the hallway outside the costuming department, stuck in a pattern of sliding open his phone, staring at the contact list until the screen went dark, and siding it open again. Hundreds of names made up the list. There were dancers, choreographers, and others from the company, along with journalists and photographers and magazine people, as well as a handful of friends and what was left of his family. But there was only one person in the world he really wanted to talk to.

The screen went dark again. Liam calculated what time it was in San Francisco, and weighed his options. The possibility that Zayn’s number had changed was a distinct one. And there was the chance that he wouldn’t pick up once he saw who was calling. Then there was Liam’s most fervent hope, that voicemail would kick in so that he’d be able to take his time and tell Zayn everything without being thrown off guard by questions or surprises. Or the sound of Zayn’s voice, soft and deliberate, in his ear.

Selfish, Liam thinks with a rueful chuckle. Just like Zayn told him he was.

You were right, Z, you were always right. Liam slid the phone open for the last time and tapped on Zayn’s contact.

There were four rings before a delay and a rushed greeting.

“ZaynMalik, thisisLen, howcanIhelpyou?”

Liam waited for several confused heartbeats.  “Uh, excuse me, who is this?”

“Zayn Malik’s phone, this is Len, his assistant. Can I help you?”

Liam’s hatred for Len was instant and palpable; surely Len was insolent and not at all useful, and clearly too old for Zayn, although they must be lovers, visionaries, creative soulmates.

Liam’s teeth clicked together, his mouth suddenly dry. “Is Zayn there please? This is Liam Payne calling.”

“Oh! Hello, Mr. Payne, yes, he’s here, just one moment, let me see if—”

“It’s fine, you could just put me through to his voicemail.” Please, please. Liam bit his thumbnail, already rehearsing the speech he’d make after the beep.

“No, not at all, he’s uh … he’s … just buried under a mountain of new fabric that was just delivered. I’ll get him.”

Liam swallowed. It had been over a year since they’d spoken, and that conversation didn’t end well.

“Hello? Liam?”

“Yes, hi, it’s me.” The sound of Zayn’s voice unexpectedly close, unlocking the wall behind Liam’s eyes that let the tears come. “How are you?”

“What’s going on? Did something happen?” Zayn’s voice was urgent.

“Uh, yeah, it did, um …” All the calm, logical things Liam had planned to say were nowhere to be found, and the floor went blurry between his feet. He wiped at his eyes and sniffed.

“Are you alright? Tell me what happened.”

“It’s Dot. She’s gone.”

There was a sigh, and a pause. “Oh.” Zayn’s one word said that he understood, that Liam didn’t have to say any more, and Liam was glad for it. Inside their silence there was no San Francisco, no fighting, no secrets, no addiction. There was only the two of them, Zayn with pink-tipped hair and a pincushion on his wrist, and Liam a fresh-faced apprentice in a striped satin costume. They looked at each other, new, when it was all still a bright adventure out in front of them. I was going to be your prince.

“I’m sorry,” Zayn said. “That’s … she was … I really loved her.” His words were careful, as always. And warm. Liam closed his eyes and felt the tears on his cheeks. He asked silently if he could put his head on Zayn’s shoulder, and Zayn silently said ‘yes,’ so they sat that way, embracing, and it made it easy for Liam to breathe out the words “I’m sorry too.” That quiet moment released a weight from his shoulders, about breaking the news but also about time passing away, and time wasted.

On the other side of the window they were waiting for Liam so they could make final adjustments to Albrecht’s godawful noble finery. Men and women moved from table to desk to sewing machine. None were Dot or Zayn, but they were their descendants, members of the same tribe, who wrote funny signs on the walls and spoke with pins pinched between their lips. The designers were designing, the sewers were sewing, the drapers were draping. And dancers were becoming. Fairies, princes, swans. Partners. Heroes.

“I don’t know how much longer I’ll be doing this.”

Liam heard Zayn’s quiet inhale. “Do you mean dancing?”

Liam cleared his throat. “Yes.”

There was a little smile in Zayn’s voice that Liam could hear when he finally spoke. “Well, that’s interesting, because I read something about you recently that said the opposite.”

“Do you mean _The Times_?” Liam’s chest burned, and he chuckled. “You read it?”

“Of course I did! I still have it … somewhere.”

“They like an underdog story,” Liam said, shaking his head. He hadn’t been sure about how it was going to go when the writer insisted on following him everywhere for three days, including rehearsals, of course, but also a meeting with the ballet master and two sessions of physical therapy. There was a mention of his injury, and a pointed but compassionate paragraph about his stay in rehab. But all in all the story was positive, and it gave Liam a sense that maybe he could persevere.

“They love you. They’re proud.”

Liam didn’t know whether to sit in or deflect this unexpected take. It was too precious to push away. “Thank you. Thanks a lot. And uh, speaking of proud, I’m uh … I heard about your appointment to costume director. That’s great news.”

“It was a bumpy road, but we got there, didn’t we?”

“Yeah, we did,” Liam said, and a part of his heart ached for a wish that both did and didn’t come true.

 

When Zayn hung up the phone, his sewing team and drapers were outside his office, ready for the meeting that should have started five minutes earlier.

Len had stayed within earshot, needlessly rearranging the staging diagrams on the table. He looked at Zayn with an uncertain smile. “Ready?”

Zayn nodded. “I just need a minute, Len, tell them we’ll meet in the conference room, alright? Bring the staging diagrams, and I’ll bring the rest. I’ll be right there.”

Zayn began to pick through the items on his desk as Len made his way out. The month-old _New York Times_ article was lying just where he knew it would be, under the stack of storyboards and fabric samples. He pulled it out, soft and wrinkled, with part of its newsprint smeared from how many times he’d looked at it. The photo of Liam was breathtaking, three columns wide, a triumphant shot of him bare-chested and mid-leap, with a look of effortless pleasure on his face. The headline read “Payne Continues to Shine – And Reimagines Ballet at Forty.”

His body in the photo was lean, the skin thinner over muscles that were more sinewy than thick. It brought Zayn back to the hallway of the costume department.

He smiled to himself, remembering the open sound of Liam’s round vowels when he spoke that first time, so different from the tense, sharp sound of New England. Zayn had reconsidered the football piece of the equation though, as soon as Liam had taken off his clothes for that first fitting; Liam’s body had been considerably slighter and more delicate under his leather bomber jacket than the fullback Zayn had expected. Though he certainly had the thighs of a ballet dancer, specifically one who could leap from apprentice to featured role at the last minute.

His was a body that could do outrageously bold and beautiful things. It was a strong body that inspired awe in those who witnessed what it could do. It was a body that could be gentle, and make Zayn feel needed, beloved, adored. It was a body of power and heat. It was a body that could take abuse. But it was a body that could break when pushed beyond its limits.

And it was a body that could heal.

Zayn thought about the man inside the body, who not so long ago was his prince. He stroked the arch of Liam’s graceful, naked foot with his thumb, a bit sad, remembering how they had separated. In the end it was like playing a game of chicken, walking away from each other out of stubbornness, betting that the other would turn around first and come back. But then no one did.

Zayn leaned back in his chair and looked around the room. There were Len’s color-coded Post-it notes, festively labeling their new bolts of fabric; there were posters on the walls of last year’s productions of _Frankenstein_ and _Nijinsky,_ the costumes that he’d designed front and center; there were the loose pages of designs that would make up the lookbook for _The Little Mermaid_. And there was a conference room full of people who relied on him to direct them.

His bumpy road out of New York had led him here. It was what he’d always dreamed of. Almost.           

 

 

 _Tribute: Unbound,_ 2018

Liam sat before his dressing room mirror with his eyes closed and breathed deeply, trying to commit the smell to memory. There was the sweet aroma of the rose petals that had been strewn at the door of his dressing room, the traditional goodbye for dancers, along with the armfuls of bouquets he had been given; there was the warm, hard-worked scent of the sweat on his skin; there was the trace of menthol and lavender from the tube of muscle rub that sat open on the counter. Pine, sweat, and flowers. These combined to create the smell he had come to equate with the ballet, and they wafted around him for the last time.

The thought was ridiculous and yet he thought it anyway: if he didn’t open his eyes, he wouldn’t have to see himself in the mirror, wouldn’t have to clean his face of the makeup, wouldn’t have to begin the process of erasing who he had become. It had worked that way the closing night of _The Nutcracker_ last December, too; afterwards he’d sat as Herr Drosselmeyer for almost an hour, alone, before he slipped off the velvet jacket and unbuttoned the ruffled blouse. He’d looked in the mirror, shirtless but with the dramatic makeup that created wrinkles the audience could see from the last row. No one had told him so, but he knew that there would be no more _Nutcrackers_ for him.  

And tonight was the last of them all. “Leave the stage before the stage leaves you,” he’d heard dancers say over the years. He never knew what they meant, couldn’t imagine how it made sense, until now.

His last costume was a slate gray pair of below-the-knee tights and a simple white t-shirt. It was comfortable and uncomplicated, better to not distract from the dance itself, which had been written for him as a tribute and a goodbye. He’d much rather have hidden under a velvet coat or thick jacket with feathers or veils; he could have played a part tonight, put on any one of a dozen characters. This one was too much himself, and yet, he found himself unable to take it off.

Three soft knocks broke in on his thoughts.

When he opened the door the smell of lilacs reached him first. Behind the purple bouquet was man about his age, dressed in a sharp dark blue suit.

“Oh my, oh my God,” Liam cried, reaching out to embrace him.

Liam held him close, the crushed lilacs sending up their perfume between them. Zayn’s dark hair, his skin, his—but too soon, Zayn pulled them apart again.

“I hope you don’t mind I came.” He looked around the dressing room and seemed to be surprised that Liam was alone.

“Jesus, let me look at you.”

“Ha, let me look at _you,”_ Zayn countered.

Zayn reached out and tugged on Liam’s beard, smiling. “I see some silver in there. That’s not makeup, is it?”

“No, that’s all me,” Liam laughed, embarrassed, but somehow proud. “Scars and all.”

Zayn chuckled, his eyes sparkling.

“I watched that tribute video the company made about you …”

“Oh Lord.” Liam covered his face with his hand.

“…Yeah, on Youtube. And I … read the countdown to your retirement in _The Times_. And Jesus, Terry Gross talked to you for a whole hour on NPR?” Zayn said, shaking his head. But then his eyes filled to almost overflowing, and he looked away.

Liam thought maybe he’d said something wrong. “What? What’s wrong?”

When he turned to face him, Liam noticed for the first time the stray flecks of white at Zayn’s temples, the wrinkles near his eyes. The boy with the pink hair was still holding lilacs, but he was all grown up.

“I want to make sure you know, in case it wasn’t clear,” Zayn began, his voice deliberate but trembling. “It was you, underneath all the costumes and makeup, that I always wanted. That I loved.”

The words were in the past tense, but they were love, and want, which Liam knew was true, because Zayn was right about things, so many things.

“Can I help?” Zayn asked, when Liam stood there dumbly, unable to move. He walked to the countertop in front of the mirror, and pushed aside the rose bouquets to make room for his lilacs. He picked up the small white tub of cold cream and a tissue.

“Let’s take it off, shall we?”

Liam swallowed. His knees trembled with adrenaline and the thought of a new adventure that might be waiting for him.

“Let’s.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of The Ziam Club's Song Lyrics Challenge, for the prompt "TiO." To read more of the amazing fics by the other writers participating on this challenge, [click here](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/The_Ziam_Club_Song_Lyric_Challenge/works).
> 
> I had so much fun researching ballet for this story. If you'd like to watch a candy cane dancer's hoop dance in The Nutcracker, find it [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uv0ATnqubrM).
> 
> I also enjoyed this interesting website about the [New York City Ballet's costume department](https://www.nycballet.com/Discover/The-Costumes.aspx).


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